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The first thing I thought when I heard about toxic chemicals in personal care products was, “Well, I’m probably okay, I use a lot of Body Shop products.”

But there they were, on the label of The Body Shop peppermint foot cream I rub into my feet at night:
methylparaben, propylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, isobutylparaben.

Parabens, in case you haven’t heard, are the new lead. Parabens are used to prolong the life of products that might otherwise go mouldy before you had a chance to use them. Like formaldehyde, an ingredient in nail polish and many personal care products, parabens are associated with birth defects, infertility, endometriosis and developmental disabilities in children. And yet most of us wipe them on our armpits, or into our scalps, and slather them onto our face, hands and feet.

All five parabens in my foot cream are considered possible endocrine disruptors that pose potential breast cancer risks, according to the Environmental Working Group’s online personal care product database, Skin Deep, which ranks the safety of 14,000 personal care products (www.ewg.org/ reports/skindeep2/report.php).

I know what you’re thinking: Women shouldn’t use cosmetics—problem solved. However, even if women stopped using camouflage-type cosmetics, the toxin problem would still persist, since most of us still brush our teeth, bathe and want a deodorant that won’t kill us. We know that long-term exposure to chemicals that act as endocrine-disruptors affects our breast cancer risk. Our female bodies are especially sensitive to torqued-up estrogen receptors because there are more fat cells for estrogen-mimickers to glom onto. We’re already trying to get rid of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in pesticides and in broken-down plastics, and to reduce our exposure to hormones in drugs like HRT. And now—this.

I’m tempted to take a bath and relieve my stress using the Lush bath products I recently received as a gift. Lush oozes uncorporateness with its cool chunk soaps and wholesome ingredients—or so I thought. It turns out that my Lush Comforter Bubble Bar Slice contains sodium lauryl sulfate, titanium dioxide and a red dye that’s red-flagged by Skin Deep. Sodium lauryl sulfate has been known to become contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, considered a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The good news, if it can be called that, is that none of these ingredients are among the 22 recently banned in the European Union. The not so good news is that Canada’s new requirement that ingredients to be listed (see Misha Warbanski’s feature article in this issue) cannot be interpreted as evidence of safety, because most have never been tested.

I’m curious, so I check to see what Skin Deep thinks of my toothpaste,Tom’s of Maine. It is ranked better than a few, but it is disheartening to find out that a company I thought was a groovy little mom and pop shop is owned by Colgate- Palmolive. I buy Tom’s because it is available sans fluoride (a carcinogen and bone-wrecking agent I drink plenty of in my tap water) and boasts baking soda. But Tom’s hasn’t signed the Safe Compact Cosmetic pledge, and so I ask Skin Deep to recommend some better brands.

What to do with all of this information? Support companies that have signed the Safe Compact pledge. The Body Shop has agreed to phase out ingredients likely to be toxins, but I’ve put them on waivers for now. Bert’s Bees has a better product list and, along with Kiss My Face, has signed on. I’ll try Crystal Body deodorant. If you feel the need to paint your toes peering through those Birkenstocks this summer, check out Skin Deep first for some safer brands, and don’t use nail hardeners—they rank as some of the worst products. Phthalates, a class of industrial plasticizers invented in the 1930s, make nail polish flexible. Lab animals given dibutyl phthalate had higher numbers of offspring with birth defects of the male reproductive system. Perfumes are not only unessential but brimming with chemicals, including phthalates, to make them release scent slowly.

Breast Cancer Action Montreal is leading the way in Canada. Until we see more action on safety, use the interactive product safety guide on Skin Deep to choose products free of known cancer-causing ingredients or impurities.

As feminists, our political strength lies in taking collective action to affect change. The cosmetics industry profits handsomely from sexist beauty standards, and a reckless approach to regulation just doesn’t wash.